trans_9 | little piece of home | the sensoriums [OPEN- calling all gymnasts]

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little piece of home | the sensoriums [OPEN- calling all gymnasts]

[bendytimed to soon after podpop, after this conversation with Katara]

It was a fairly normal reaction, when a new crew-member first learned about the sensoriums, to go and want to create something familiar, something from home. Haley was no exception. She had gone, and stood in the middle of the empty chamber for a bit, trying to decide what she wanted to make though, when to her surprise the mats and equipment of the old gym at VGA started to take shape around her.

Gymnastics was what she missed of home? Not f**king likely. Still, after her conversation with Katara, she did kind of feel like a round in the gym, and she could certainly use the work-out to help take her mind off things. Haley looked down and noted with surprise that she was wearing her standard training gear- a sports bra and cut off sweat pants, with guards on her hands for using the uneven bars. Where the hell had that freaky plant suit-ish thing gone? Haley tugged at the edge of the sports bra, and it snapped back into place as if it were made of real elastic. Huh. That was ... actually kind of cool. Well, she was all ready to go for some time on the uneven bars, so let's do it.

Haley stepped forward, dusting her hands in the familiar chalk bin, before launching herself up at the low bar. And around. And around. Now leap over to the high bar. And around. And around. She let herself get lost in the familiar motion, let the pull and stretch on her muscles sooth. Momentum built, as she went around, and around, and around.

Haley was so lost in what she was doing she didn't notice she'd left the door open a crack; anyone could just walk in.

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Beam. Beam. Beam... BEAM! AHA! Victory was hers! Stacy was a pretty cool ship. Even told her that there was a gymnastics gym prepared already. Rock on with your bad self, Stace!

Jubilee had found her clothes in the lockers, and among them found not only her X-Man uniform - though why she had that, Jubilee had no idea - but her work out clothes. Thank God!

She'd stretched out some this morning - old habits died hard - but dude, nothing said lovin' like a couple hours on a balance beam. save maybe a few hours with the mats and tumbling runs.

She needed music though. Music was definitely needed. Mozart, Bach, maybe even Wagner. Nah, not Wagner. Not what she was in the mood for. But she could totally do Mozart. Time to rock the beam though. She could do it without music, if she had to.

Bumping open the door, Jubilee stopped and raised an eyebrow, seeing the girl on the bars. Not bad. Not her level, of course, but not bad. She'd brought a towel with her, and dropped it on a bench. After a quick inspection of the beam, Jubilee just began stretching.

Time to clear her head, deal with her brain, and get the muscles burning.

[WARNING: I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GYMNASTICS, I AM MAKING THIS ALL UUUUUUP DX]

If Jubilee was going to be better then Haley, she would have to be an olympic level gymnast; Haley was pretty damn good. Of course, it was at that particular moment that Haley decided to try a triple front ... and landed flat on her face. "Damn it," she muttered as she climbed to her feet, dusting herself off. Then she noticed Jubilee, stretching away.

Haley had not been expecting to be interrupted. She's always been the only one who trained in the old gym, and besides Burt, no one else even went there. So yeah, she was a little peeved to have someone in her space. She wasn't going to show that by being defensively sarcastic though, or anything. Of course not. What kind of girl do you take her for?

She eyed Jubilee, took in her work out clothes. "Well hey. Sure why not. It's an open gym ..."

[and sorry, meaning changing typo was significant. I promise I can usually spell. DX]

Jubilee pushed herself up into an easy handstand on the beam, and smiled at the other girl. "Heya!" She said brightly, dropping down to the ground again, and rolling her shoulders. She bent double, putting her nose to her knees.

It felt ever so good to get back into routine.

Straightening, she bounced on her toes. "I'm Jubilee." She said, offering a hand.

To be honest, Katara hadn't been sure what to expect when she stepped into the Sensorium, but after talking with Haley a few day ago and the strange surprise from this morning, she actually felt pumped up. Now that her body was less achy, she was willing to extend her body some more now.

Of course, completely unknown to her that there were other people in the Sensorium, she had set the music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_GWWJE-e2U) in the place, and her clothes changed to a white leotard with blue trim, her hair put up in Fire Nation style. She started with a few stretches, movement she was sure that looked less than human thanks to her Bene Gesserit training, her right leg resting comfortably on her head and her left extending past her torso straight out. She eased herself out of the pose and switched, waiting several seconds before sticking her legs straight out on both sides, and then rising up.

She ran and did two forward flips, one back, then rested her arms to her sides a moment before doing three full cartwheels. Pausing, she eased her bod back into a cat lift post, then downward dog and she paused, now realizing she wasn't the only one here.

"Oh hey!" She knew BOTH the girls here. "Hayley, Jubilee! Nice to see you guys here! Uh, I didn't know!"

Smooth.

Ben liked the Sensoriums.

First, they made nutrigoo palatable, which was nothing short of a miracle. Second, walking in on a completely new room each visit was fun. Sure, sometime he walked into blazing heat, cannibal planets, or terrible music, but there was a short, electric shock of adventure every time. And it was interesting to see what the crew wanted to surround themselves with, when they could choose anything at all.

Today, the place was fairly low key -- the mats, beams, and bars of gymnastic equipment. But there were familiar faces here. "Then I'm not crashing a party?" he asked, hopping up to sit a beam near Katara.

"Uh ..."

Dude. There were suddenly so fricking many people up in Haley's space. "Yeah, okay. Hi Katara. And," she snapped her finger and pointed. "Ben, right? And uh, hey, new person, I'm Haley." The hand she offered was still covered in chalk, but Jubilee didn't mind, right?

"So, uh," she continued, "we having some kind of gym bonding party up in here? Cause, if so, who is responsible for the music? That's gotta be fixed." Haley concentrated and the music shifted to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv1uae2SwvY). Haley nodded in satisfaction. "That's more like it."

No. Jubilee didn't mind chalk at all. She'd spent more than a few hours with chalk on her hands. She'd end up there later anyway.

She tried not to grimace when the music shifted. "Hey Katara." She said. Didn't anyone train properly any more? Sarge would have her neck if she attempted to train to that stuff.

"Hiya Ben. I'm Jubilee." She went back to stretching, because, honestly, she needed this work.

"Where'd you train Haley?" Jubilee asked, pulling herself up onto the beam and continuing to stretch. No one worked like that without training.

Katara was unused to the chalk, to be honest. Usually, she was able to make do without, but in this case, she supposed she could try it, as long as it made her hand less raw.

She stretched, then waved to Ben. "I guess they'll be the judge of that," she said, pointing to Jubilee and Hayley. "Nice to see you again, Ben! Do you do gymnastics too?"

The music was...unfamiliar, but she could see why Hayley liked it. The music carried a beat that she could follow, and that in turn could also match up with the movements they did.

Katara started to move with the music: one leg stretched up first, then bent back, turned around and turned with the other leg stretched, slowly out her keg down and then twisted in the air, her face flushed a little.

I like it ! she thought to herself.

She was listening though, just as interested.

"We all do some gymnastics training," he shrugged, calling on Force-based reserves of patience to endure the music. "And falling off gym equipment is decent practice for getting thrown off buildings."

He ignored the chalk -- he wasn't sure what the girls were practicing for, but gymnastic training, for a Jedi, wasn't an end in and of itself. It was for fighting and running away really fast in strange terrain, and he doubted he'd be in one of those situations with a chance to chalk up first. So he stretched briefly, stood on the beam for a moment, then flipped into a handstand and held it on the elevated surface. Focus.

Haley wasn't going to mention where she had trained for most of her life ~~the place where her coach had had an affair with her mom~~, so instead, she shrugged and said "I'm now at VGA." Yeah, Burt Vickerman was really unpopular in the world of elite gymnastics, so Haley was expecting to be judged for this, but whatever, she was used to it, and perfectly capable of judging right back. Plus, hello, she was Haley Graham the most hated gymnest in America. She wasn't sure what the fact that Jubilee hadn't recognized her meant. Probably that she wasn't very good, or didn't compete much ... Jubilee it appeared could stretch like a pro though, so maybe there was something there.

"So wow, we're all gymnests, huh?" Her eyes were wide with sarcastic excitement. "One big happy family. Well, you've already seen my awesome dismount, so lets see what you kids can do." She crossed her arms over her chest, ready to be unimpressed.

"Never heard of 'em." Jubilee said, shrugging. She finished, shaking her legs out. "You done with the bars?" She asked, rolling her shoulders.

She went over to chalk up her hands. "If not I can do tumbling runs, but I'd kinda like to work the bars if you don't mind." She glanced at Ben. "It's weird seeing a guy on the beam, Sarge never taught the guys that." She shook her head, and went to inspect the bars before she went to use them.

Yeah, Haley had been on them, but Jubilee had been thoroughly trained. She could almost hear Sarge barking at her to 'inspect the Freedom Bars, and learn from them Red Monkey!' Man, she missed him. She smiled to herself.

Katara preferred things to steady herself , but she didn't need bars, and once she watched Ben's preparation, she imagine herself halfway being in the cave again and facing off with Master Pakku the first time. Gymnastics in this sense was part dance and part fighting in a way: both required her steady mind and her endurance. Once she heard Hayley's comment, she smiled to herself.

Music was one part, but in truth she could hear the tics and the movement all in her head. The meditations she had slowed time down in this way. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

One. Two. One two. One two three. OnetwothreefourGO

She spun sideways, her legs landing slightly apart, and she could see, in her mind, the advancing attack of someone she knew well: Azula at the day of Sozin's comment. She made a run and did three triple flips and reared back, locking her legs in place before doing a forward flip, her hands mimicking her water bending Tai Chi movement, then bent herself completely backward and stood straight up, legs in the air, and fell down lightly, her last movement in a stance.

She took a short breath, admiring silently how much faster she'd gotten over the last few months.

"Different traditions, different trainers, different barvy drills," Ben said dryly, still locked into position atop the beam. At least I'm not in a swamp. Breathing slowly, he lifted one hand off its padded surface, channeling the Force as he did so and twisting to get a better look at Katara's routine -- if it was a routine at all. It was half-gymnastic, half-martial, not just showmanship. "And different reasons for learning in the first place."

The smell of hand chalk. Bad music. The sounds of hands and feet bouncing off of equipment.

Mei-Xing pokes her head into the Sensoriums with a confused look. "Wait. Waitwaitwait. This ship's all meaty and pulsy, and suddenly we have an old-style gym?" What the drek, people. She steps in fully and looks around. Well, she'd be damned. She steps on in and stares around, running a hand through her hair as she watches the others play about on the equipment.

This wasn't what she was used to, but it might be nice to hang about. She'd just settle in and do her practice when all of these kids left.

"Yeah, sure, whatever sister, knock yourself out." Haley gestured at the uneven bars as she backed away from them.

She had to admit, she was pretty impressed by Katara's routine. "You got kind of a kung-fu vibe going on," she told the other girl.

Watching Ben on the beam, Haley had to smile. Here was a challenge. "Not bad, bean sprout," she told him, then vaulted up onto a parallel beam. She started the same way he had, going into a handstand on the beam, but then, she lowered her legs, until she was doing the splits, before finally lifting one hand off the beam and pointing it straight to the side- all without the aid of the force. Beat that Ben.

Haley was distracted though, by the entrance of another new person. "What is this, open day at the old folks home?" she muttered to herself. Then, in response to the new girl's comment, "... hey! What do you mean 'old-style'? This gym is perfectly serviceable, thank you very much. Everything's regulation." After spending several months training in here, Haley had to admit she had grown (just a tiny bit) fond of the place.

Jubilee flashed a grin at the other girl. "Thanks!" She said warmly. Standing at the end of the run, she ignored the others and rolled her shoulders once again.

Then all that mattered was running down the aisle, and the hit of the springboard against her hands. Chalk slid over her palms as she grabbed the high bar and swung around, coming to a perfect handstand.

"I think," Jubilee put in, "that she meant gymnastics as being old style, rather than speaking about the aesthetics of the place." Her body folded, and she spun around the bar, enjoying the freedom of almost flying.

Her hands tucked into her body as she released the bar. In perfect timing, Jubilee managed to grab the bar again and twisted around it, ending in another handstand. "But I could be wrong, and she could just find our quaintness utterly fascinating and she now wants to observe the lower life forms that she's deigned to meet." She flashed a grin at them, turning on her hands. "Or I could just be being cynical."

Katara shook her head amidst all the conversation. It was nice and all, but most of it was distracting: something about someone insulting the gymnastic equipment as being old, maybe a put down toward them. Honestly, she could have cared less about that other than an appreciative nod in Hayley's direction and a wave to Jubilee and Ben before returning to her routine again.

She could have told Ben that it WAS half martial arts half gymnastics, because that had really been the way she'd learned it. The martial arts portion was the waterbender in her: she weaved in and out of movements, positioning her arms and legs a certain way before launching into a defensive strike. She lifted her body up with her arms before curling backward and doing a few more forward flips in the air, doing a split in-between and then running toward the beam and flipping perfectly onto it before splitting again, her arms grabbing onto the beam, and flipping her body several times before doing a somersault in the air and touching down to the mat, legs extended and arms apart from each other, breathing hard.

To Mei Xing, she gave a wave of acknowledgment, grinning.

"Or maybe," Ben offered, recalling the newcomer's combativeness last time they'd talked, "she just likes to complain." He held the one-handed hand-stand, not particularly interested in showing off around a gaggle of teenage girls and more curious about how long he could draw on the Force to stay perfectly still over a sustained period of time.

"Silence, gwailo." She scowls at Space Yacht, then steps further into the gym. "And I mean what I said." She eyes the bars, and the rings. It's like something from the 90s. "None of this equipment's built for metahumans. Or people sporting chrome, for that matter." She glances over at Haley, guessing that since she's the one who took offense, she must have made this place. Eh, if she didn't want to support the orks, trolls, or dwarves, Mei-Xing couldn't complain too much. Now, if she wanted to expel the elves, then there'd be a problem.

She does, however, take a moment from her aimless griping to toss Katara off a friendly smile and wave. She doesn't really mean to offend people. She's just... Offensive. Sometimes. She doesn't even realize she's doing it, half the time. "Hey."

Sorry Katara, Haley was used to chatting during her training. Now though, she was flipping back upright as she stared at the newcomer in confusion. "Metahumans? Sporting chrome? Speak English, man." Haley wanted to point out to her that this wasn't some bad sci-fi show ... except they were on a ship that was alive, and yeah, yeah it kind of was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Jubilee. Damn, okay the other girl had skills. Time to show Haley could do more than falling on her face. How about a double back dismount? Watch me, Bert, she thought to herself. She almost could hear his voice in the back of her head, chiding her for throwing hard tricks.

And haha, yeah! That was how you suck a landing. Haley came out of the double flip both feet perfectly positioned on the floor. After a moment of self congratulation, she turned to the newcomer. "So, you actually do anything, or do your skills just lie in running your mouth?"

The metahuman comment caught Jubilee's attention. Panting, she folded her body and manage to perch on the high bar. It was all Kurt's fault. She'd seen him perch on things too many times.

She looked down at the girl. "Metahumans?" She asked, both hands on the bar under her. "You mean like mutants?" Because, seriously? Did the girl really think that? Well, here was one mutant getting a nice little workout on the oh so outdated gym equipment, thanks.

Her weight bobbled, and she, barely, managed to turn it into a spin around the bar. That spin became a second and then a third as she finally caught her balance again, doing a handstand on the upper bar.

Honestly, it was a wonder that anyone was getting anything done, and what was the point if they spent all of their time sniping? She'd heard about metahumans before, at least as far as mutants were concerned. What was chrome though? Was it some sort of metal?

Katara switched from the balance beams to the rings, and swung from one to the other a moment, then started to swing upside down from two she swung freely from, balancing herself high in the air before doing a back flip back on her feet. She brought one leg up in the air, turning her body so that her upper half was turned as near to the mat as she could.

"I think I'd like to see what you could do too, if you don't mind," Katara said to Mei Xing. "Oh, and his name isn't gwailo, its Ben!"

No, Katara was not so naive that she didn't know he name she called Ben probably wasn't a nice one, but she preferred keeping things nice in their training space.

"We've met," Ben noted, holding his single-handed handstand. Maintaining that particular position was getting to be boring, but if he tried voicing that particular opinion around his father, he'd have been asking for an earful of When I was your age, I had to stay still for hours, in a swamp, soaking wet, with a Jedi Master balancing on my feet levitating rocks around my head uphill both ways. It made I was focusing, but gymnastics are a social event on this ship sound pretty tame. "But Katara's got a point. If you can't come up with something to practice, it's not the gym's fault."

"Mutant? That isn't exactly PC." After all, SURGE victims couldn't help looking like freaks. Though some of them could stand to stay out of the public. Mei-Xing backs up a bit, stretching her shoulders as she keeps talking. "I'm talking metahumanity and cyberware. Or don't you guys have orks and dwarves where you're from?" Especially trolls, but most trolls weren't into gymnastics.

She takes a few steps back. They want to see something? Well, she wasn't going to show what she had right off the bat, but a little show wouldn't hurt much. Mei-Xing heads over to the floor padding, eying the square drawn on it with a slight smirk. A step back, a short run leading to two... Three handsprings, and endling in a two and a half front layout. She lands neatly, recovers, then dusts her shoulder off like it was nothing. "I'm no beginner." She grins smugly and crosses her arms, as if daring someone to say otherwise.

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little piece of home | the sensoriums [OPEN- calling all gymnasts]

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DX I am soooooo sorry you guys, that I fail at tagging DDDX

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